27 June 2014

To my lovely followers, just letting you know I have set up a website to help promote my work a bit better. And I have relocated my blog there too. I have not found a way to automatically move you over, and wouldn't want to assume, but also don't want to lose you.

I do hope you come over and have a look and re-subscribe so I can continue to share my work and news with you.

16 June 2014

It is funny how some things seem to coincide. The theme for last week on the 52 week illustration challenge was feast. And I signed up for an online course on creating illustrated recipes. Food, food and more food.

For those of you who have been long time readers you will know that I submitted 2 recipes to the wonderful site They Draw and Cook last year. And had both accepted. Which was a great thrill for me. I have been wanting to do more recipes but other things have been a priority so when I saw the course Draw it Like its Hot being presented by Koosje Koene I thought it was a great opportunity to get back into it. And I love doing courses. This one is for four weeks and I am looking forward to an influx of new ideas and inspiration, and meeting a whole new bunch of wonderful people.

On the theme of feast I decided to go with a child's tea party. I used to love having tea party when I was young. I used a new colour palette which I think adds a lot to the illustration. It makes it light, bright and happy. Just what I was after.

The first weeks activities for Draw it Like its Hot was to sketch pages of food and kitchen items. Just to get you drawing. She calls these Foodle pages. I love the name. They are a lot of fun to do. I really like how the page turns out. I think it would make a great pattern page.

For something different I decided to colour this page in Photoshop. It certainly makes it bright. A totally different feel. But still nice.

I am looking forward to more food and recipe fun in the next few weeks and I will continue to post my progress for you all to share.

06 June 2014

Eyes are fascinating. I love drawing eyes, though I do find them a major challenge. They say so much, capable of expressing so much feeling. It is hard to capture that at times. The eyes give so much away about a person, their age, how they are feeling.

Not only do we have eyes but so many other creatures and things. You can look at an eye and know where it came from. A cats eye is distinctive from a horses eye or a goat. This means you really need to pay attention to the detail.

When I was young I had a Mr Potato head toy. It was fun to take off his eyes and mouth and nose and ears and put them back on in funny places. When Toy Story came out they changed Mr Potato head. I still like him but he just isn't the same for me. Does that show my age? This is how I remember him...

One of the things I love to paint is cats faces, paying particular attention to their eyes. This is one I did this week. I have been sick for a couple of weeks and not painted for some time. It really shows. But boy did it feel good to do. I love using watercolours. Just doing this simple piece reinforced this for me. Do you get that feeling when you go back to a medium you love? Now this is why I create art.

This is how I am woken in the morning most days. With a cat prodding me and staring at me to get my attention. How could you get angry at that? It is love.

With all drawing skills it takes practice and more practice. I do like to do sheets of different parts of the anatomy so to help move things along I also did this page. I mainly focused on children's eyes. They are just quick pencil sketches but I think they worked well.

About Me

I am an artist and recently completed an Advanced Diploma in Illustration. I try to paint or draw something daily. I love working in pen and ink, and watercolour among other mediums. This is some of what I create.

Copyright

All artwork/illustrations shown are the work of Jacqui Petersen unless otherwise stated. All such work is copyright protected and is not to be used or copied in any form without express permission. Please respect my right as an artist.